


thy sea, O God, so great

by Ias



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Body Worship, Consentacles, Fictional Religion & Theology, Guys I promise this is much less fucked up than the tags would imply, Horror Elements, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 13:30:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: Like all great authorities, the gods were made to be feared.
Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean
Comments: 5
Kudos: 113
Collections: The Great Valvert Tentacle-Off





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 10,000 words of worldbuilding and a literal epilogue, all for the sake of tentacle porn. This is a nightmare and so am I.

Since the day he was given to the temple as a child, Javert has belonged to the gods. Year by year he has traced the seashell murals which line the high walls of the inner temples, marking time by the new patterns his growing limbs can reach. For decades he has stared into the jeweled eyes of monsters rising from sea-glass depths, all scale and fin and glittering fang, to lay claim to the riches of the dry realms to which they are owed their due. 

It is with dread as much as reverence with which he has touched their sacred images in the deep watches of the night, when the cave walls which stand between him and those forbidden sanctums seem to tremble like the membranes of a heart. For like all great authorities, they were made to be feared as well as obeyed. 

The sound of the storm is a muffled roar through the caves as Javert slides a brush of stiffened seal fur no larger than his little finger in between the tiles of the holy mosaic. It is always dark in the depths of the temple, whose passages were chewed deep into the cliffside by time or water or the gods themselves. But the storm sucks the light of the braziers even lower, guttering and flickering in the wind which picks up through the stone channels in a lungless, unceasing sigh. 

Nose inches from his work, Javert is scarcely aware of it. His eyes have long since adjusted to the gloom. 

In the sea-hewn caves at the temple’s heart, the sacred acolytes whose flesh is consecrated to serve and feed the ancient ones have been at their worship for days on end, caught in the ecstasies of the storm. Javert is not among them. He is not worthy to pass into the inner sanctums and receive the gods’ favor, a fact he has long accepted. He will do as the temple asks him, with no desire but to follow the narrow line of his plotted course as rigidly and effectively as possible. 

He slides his brush around the edges of a shell set in the maw of _ La Mangeuse _ . Only dead gods are immortalized on the walls thus, and _ La Mangeuse _claimed hundreds of acolytes during her time hosted in this temple. With his face hovering just over the facsimile of her gaping throat, Javert is likely seeing what many of his brethren witnessed moments before their ascension. When he was younger, the thought would have filled him with a strange mixture of terror and longing. Now, he focuses on his work, scraping the thin rime of salt deposited by the sea air from between every shell and tile, his feet sturdy on the wooden step ladder. 

Over the long years of his service to the temple he has learned his duties well. From the earliest days when he had failed to properly scrub the kitchen floor, the old child-watcher never hesitated to cuff him over the head and remind him that his mother had sold him to the temple for five copper pieces, so he could at least attempt to be worth as much. As if Javert needed to be reminded. That flash of gleaming metal slipping into her palm, after she had held him and dampened his dark hair with tears before disappearing forever, was as clear in Javert’s mind as a cloudless dawn. 

He holds no grudges against her weakness. Her abandonment was merely the instrument through which he, an unworthy wretch, could achieve his deliverance. 

Another boom of crashing waves reverberates through the tunnel. In such a gale, those gods which had already made their appearances were not likely to leave, basking in the power of the storm focused through the temple like a lens. Javert has already heard stories of at least two acolytes swept out through the sea-portal, claimed by the storm. He has never stepped within those high-ceilinged coves—only the consecrated may have that honor—but he can imagine their deep pools churning with the encroaching sea, a maelstrom spilling onto the temple floors like blood pooling in a gouging wound. 

The loudest wave yet slams into the cliffside, its thunder so low Javert can feel it in his bones. With a chink, a shark’s tooth loosened from its molding by long years in the damp air falls to the stone floor ten feet below. Javert frowns down at it, debating the merits of climbing down to retrieve it or risking it being lost in the interim while he finishes—in the end, the choice is clear. With a sigh he begins the precarious climb down. 

“Javert, there you are. Thank the gods.”

Javert looks up to see Rivette hurrying around the corner, his white acolyte’s robes swishing around his ankles. He looks worried, but that is hardly surprising—the man’s default expression is one of anxious concern, and it seems an accurate representation of his typical state of mind. Javert reaches the bottom of the ladder and stoops to retrieve the fallen tooth, brushing it lightly with his fingers. 

“I checked your rooms, the mess hall, the shrine—Chabouillet has been looking for you for almost an hour,” Rivette babbles as Javert re-mounts the ladder.

“I have been at my duties,” Javert states, pulling his pot of adhesive from his belt and bowing over the gap in the mural. “As all in the temple should be.” Rivette continues to squawk at him as Javert painstakingly lowers the tooth back into its rightful place. He will not be distracted during such a crucial operation. It settles into the slot it occupied, neatly as a key in a lock. He holds it there for the glue to set, a grim smile touching his thin lips. All things in their proper place. 

“Are you even listening to me?” Rivette cries from below. 

“I am counting.” 

“Javert, this is important—”

“It might wait twenty-four more seconds.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rivette throw up his hands. “Oh, for—I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this. But—there’s a new god, washed in on the storm. I think Chabouillet means to assign you.” 

A flash of pain, hot as an ember lancing his fingertip. 

Javert pulls his hand back with a hiss of surprise, staring at the tooth he has just affixed. A single drop of his blood gleams on its needle tip, suspended for an instant and then rolling down to disappear into the cracks of the mural itself. The throb in his fingertip quickly dulls, and yet he finds himself unable to look away. 

“I am not fit for such a service,” he says at last, his voice almost lost in the tremulous din. 

“There is no one else,” Rivette says. “No others can be spared, with the storm—Javert, you really must hurry. I myself cannot stray from my god’s sanctuary for long.” 

Slowly, Javert climbs back down the ladder. Rivette awaits him, his hands clasped before him in what appears to be an attempt to avoid wringing them anxiously. On one of his shoulders, a fresh wound carves a perfect, serrated circle through the pale bared flesh. It shines with the thick coat of ointment the healers have provided, but any worthy of such a token would not dare to hide it beneath a dressing. 

Javert has seen enough of such favors on Rivette’s skin to have an idea of his god’s shape, its sucking tooth-ringed mouths and clawed, insistent hands. Rivette is one of the god’s four attendants, though not so long ago it was five; Javert had also seen the body they bore reverently from the chamber, the flesh still seeping from the chunks torn from it. 

Some gods leave hardly enough of their favorite attendants to fill a sealskin bag; other times, there are no bodies at all. It is difficult not to envy that most complete of transformations, devoured by the ancients and purified within them. For those that were carried from the sanctum still alive, it was more difficult to appreciate the glorious nature of their fate. There was one who lay in the infirmary for two and a half weeks, screaming as the strange venom crept its way to his heart, rotting all it left in its wake. He had died not with a prayer of gratitude on his lips, but screaming for the relief of a pain tonic. A disappointment to them all. 

“Chabouillet is in the private sanctum,” Rivette says as Javert mutely falls into step. “He can explain more.”

Javert says nothing; there is nothing to say. He keeps his thumb pressed to the tip of his index finger, in case the blood still flows. He glances back only once before they round the corner from the mural, his ladder in place, his work unfinished. From afar, he can see the design as a whole, the twining maelstrom of sea-glass waves, the gods whose holy, monstrous bodies boil from the froth of the whirlpool. In the center, the great mouth of _ La Mangeuse _gapes with its rows and rows of razored teeth, her throat a black void. Somewhere in that gaping maw, a single drop of his blood hardens into permanence. As if the gods have already tasted him. 

He turns his back and hurries on at Rivette’s side. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Put this on.” 

Chabouillet thrusts a neat bundle into Javert’s arms as he stands, dripping and bare, before the cistern of icy water from which he has just emerged. Normally the ceremonial cleansing would be a two-day affair, with the proper rites spoken and long hours for meditation—Javert has assisted with the rituals himself, but only when there were none with a more sonorous voice to speak the words. Now only he, Rivette and the high priest remain, and the words go unspoken. 

It is more suitable this way. Javert has been chosen for this honor out of need, not worthiness, and he does not deserve any of the benefits such a position provides. The nervous acolyte makes to wrap a damp towel around Javert’s shoulders before thinking better of it, and handing the cloth over. 

“This is a new god, and we can offer no insight as to what its needs may be,” Chaoubillet says. Javert is shivering in spite of himself, the icy water and the harsh soap making the temple air almost painful on his skin. The high priest’s private chambers are situated high in the cliffs, and the glass windows tremble with the force of the driving rain. 

Javert dries himself off quickly, unselfconscious of his nakedness. In the shared dorms of the lesser servants there are few secrets kept, and Javert’s body has only ever before been a useful mechanism in his work. And now—now it will not be so different. His body will feed the god, in whatever way it deems best. 

“You will need to be prepared for anything,” the high priest continues as Javert tugs the acolyte’s robe over his head. “You are familiar with the proper incantations?” 

“Yes.” 

“That will have to suffice.” The material of the robe is so soft it slides over Javert’s skin like water. His servant’s uniform had been thick, coarse, and covered him from neck to wrist and ankle; nigh unbearable in the summertime. Now the robe he wears, which is as grey as a cloudy dawn and clasped at one shoulder with the crowned shell brooch of the temple, leaves him feeling even more exposed than when he was utterly bare. His functional boots have been taken too, leaving him barefoot on the cold, smooth floor.

Chabouillet inspects him with a critical eye, his steel-grey brows contracted. It is clear he is not pleased with what he sees. Javert keeps his back straight and his shoulders squared, bearing his own insufficiency grimly. He knows he is not pleasing in any manner a god might like to look upon: his face was carved out of a childhood of frowns, made harsher still by a lifetime of sea air and the whiskers spreading down to the sneer-creased line of his mouth. Nor are his manners those which a god might find pleasing. His devotion is absolute, he is bereft of enjoyment besides in work done efficiently; he is diligent, dedicated, utterly chaste, every ounce of the terrible fervor which fuels his body like oil in the temple sconce channelled and focused into duty alone. There is no softness in his hands or words. In every way, he is insufficient. 

At last Chabouillet shakes his head. “In any other circumstances you would receive months of training before entering a sanctuary, let alone to serve a god alone. But under other circumstances, this would not be happening at all.” 

He turns to his driftwood-woven desk, upon which a small silver tray a single glass cup with a mouthful of thick, greenish liquid waits. Chabouilley plucks it between two fingers and offers it to Javert. “This will help with the pain.”

Javert eyes it disdainfully. “I am not—”

“You will take it, Javert. That is not a question. I will not allow you to suffer needlessly.” 

Javert was not built to disobey. He accepts the glass cup and, after only a brief hesitation, downs its contents in a single burning swallow. The draught works its way down his throat like acid, blooming in his empty stomach and immediately making his head swim. He regrets the elixir immediately. Chabouillet may have already resigned him to be torn apart by a displeased god, but Javert would much prefer to have his mind intact. To be personally destroyed by a god would be a greater honor than he deserves. To fumble a prayer or incantation would be unforgivable. 

“I suppose that will have to do,” Chabouillet says at last. He nods tersely to Rivette, who hurries forward from his place at the wall. “Take him to the temple chamber, and then return to your own god’s needs.” 

“Yes, Monsieur.” Rivette executes a hasty bow, which Javert follows more sedately. Then once again Javert is hurried from the room, toward the long, winding corridors which leave the public temple and the servant living areas behind, slanting down to meet the sea and the hungry things which emerge from it. 

* * *

“Do not be too quick to get into the water,” Rivette says. “That’s what they always want—for you to join them. But often it’s better to make them wait a while, first. Talk to it, if it is capable or willing of it. Gauge what it wants from you first; that can make all the difference.” 

Javert nods, his eyes locked on the sliver of darkness before them. The large, airy hallways of the main temple have slowly contracted to a narrow passage barely wide enough for him and Rivette to stand side by side. Before them, a brazier burns above the place where the smooth-walled tunnel ends, nothing more than a rough gap in the rock carved by millenia of wind and rain. The runes etched around it are sacred, warding. Beyond this point, only a god’s attendant may pass.

“Don’t wait too long, though,” Rivette says. He has given up the effort of not wringing his hands. “You don’t want to make it angry.” 

“I understand.” Javert turns to face him for a moment. In the years of their acquaintance since Rivette joined the temple, their relationship has never resembled a friendship. Still, it seems this may be the last human being Javert is ever fated to see. He extends his hand, businesslike, and there’s only a brief moment before Rivette seizes it in two of his own. 

Rivette’s smile is weak. “Normally I would urge a new attendant not to be afraid. But I do not think that is necessary here.” 

“You are correct.” 

There is nothing more to say than that. Rivette lets Javert’s hand go; his eyes bore into him with a desperate, fearful pity that Javert cannot stomach. He turns to the passage to the temple, beyond which there are no more braziers of seal oil: nothing but a pure and sucking darkness that seems to breathe with the rhythm of the storm. 

The prayer Javert murmurs before turning his body sideways to squeeze into the passage is not in solicitation of mercy. It is forgiveness he asks of the ancient being within: for he is not worthy to pass this way, even into death.


	3. Chapter 3

The way is long. 

Javert edges deeper into the natural crevice step by painstaking step in near-total darkness, groping along with his hands and fingers over the rough, damp stone. Sand clings damply to his bare feet. In some places his hands follow the contours of the walls until they draw so close together he almost cannot pass—but he lets the air from his lungs and squeezes himself in sideways, the cold scrape of rock against his check and back. The euphoric trembling of the storm hums through the rock, into him. 

At times he has to stop as the drug rises like a low-lying fog in his head, clouding his thoughts and shortening his breath. The tips of his fingers begin to go numb, and for a moment he considers the possibility that he might lose the sensation he depends on in order to escape this passage, and die not at the hands of a displeased god but rather lost in a warren of tunnels, unable to feel his way out. 

The deeper he travels, the stronger the scent of brine in his nose. A constant wind whistles through the crack, carrying with it the cold electricity of the hurricane. A roar begins to build from somewhere ahead, seething and then fading and then rushing forward again. With it comes light, so faint at first that Javert barely realizes he can see the vague outline of the slick rocks before him. Before long he slides around a narrow bend and a gash of pale cloudlight looms before him, a fine spray of saltwater misting his face. 

Javert does not hesitate. He wriggles past the final lip of stone, and staggers into the dazzling luxury of light and space and air. 

All around him, the stone opens up into a massive chamber whose dark walls rise far over his head. In the center of the space a vast pool of water heaves and churns, fed by the surging stormwater from some underwater channel he cannot see. Above, the cove opens up onto a portal of swirling iron-grey clouds, the sky a grim mirror of the waves below. Rain falls like a curtain in the center of the room, barely wrinkling the swirling foam below. 

There is no sign of the god at all. 

Javert smooths his hands down the wrinkles in his robe, and then grimaces at the grimy smears the narrow walls have left on the fine cloth. Yet another insult. His eyes rake the surface of the water, and even the rough walls above: he has heard of stranger things than a god descending on a seabird’s wings. Nothing moves but the sea and the rain; Javert could well be alone here, but for the prickle rising on his skin which is entirely separate from the cold. 

The breath he draws in is an icy knife between the ribs. “I am foam on the sea, O God,” he intones, beginning the prayer he has never before spoken aloud. His lips are numb around the words, and yet he speaks them clear. “I dissolve into your greatness. I am the sea-bitten stone carved to suit your desires.” 

As he watches the sea retreat between the tides, he can make out a shallow platform leading into the water at the edge of the pool, that he might step into the surf without being fully submerged—and further out, in the center of the boiling spray, a pillar of rock rises dark and slick and flecked with white foam, flat and perhaps ten feet in diameter. An altar, swallowed by the waves with every new rush. The currents look strong enough to sweep him off his feet and slam him against the rocks until the water runs red, and drag him out into the belly of the sea. 

“I submit myself to your will and mercy,” he continues, his voice so low it is barely audible over the sea. He takes another step toward the pool, until the surf rushing against the lip of the pool spits flecks of icy water on his bared legs. His legs feel steadier than they had in the tunnel, though still his toes are numb. “I am your servant and your nourishment. Accept this sacrifice, humbly offered to your glory.”

As the final line of the prayer rings through the high chamber, a rumble of thunder pours out of the sky to echo around the cove’s walls like a pronouncement. Javert tenses, his eyes fixed on the roiling pool before him. And yet the thunder dies away, unremarkable, and still there is no response. 

From what the other acolytes had told him, the gods were rarely coy in their approach; they came to the temple because they wanted something, and gods are not known for their patience. 

Perhaps Javert is unworthy to behold the god at all. Would Chabouillet order him sunk among the traitors and infidels just off the cliff, to have his pollution cleansed by the fish and crabs? Javert found it unlikely. Easier to believe was that Chabouillet would merely shake his head, exchange Javert’s robe for his old uniform once more, and never speak of it again. He would be denied even purification. 

Javert is hardly aware that he is moving until the curtain of rain breaks over his face. Icy water contracts around his foot, his ankle, his calf. He sucks in a sharp breath as he staggers onto the pool’s landing, gripping the edge for support. A moment later the current comes surging back, rising above his knees and stealing away any remaining feeling in his legs. The hem of his robe lifts with the tide, plastering to his legs and quickly weighing him down. Javert has heard enough talk from the other acolytes to know he will not need it. When next the tide withdraws, Javert fumbles his numb hands to the seashell clasp of his robe, and in a moment he heaves the sodden, silky material off his body and onto the rocks behind him. 

The rain pelts down on his bare skin now, driven by the wind. Now, at last, the drug’s numbing effect is a comfort. He does not wrap his arms around his torso, though the temptation is strong. He will show no weakness. He takes a staggering step forward, and then another. Somewhere before him, the shallow landing on which he stands will drop into the depths. The surface of the water is an inscrutable roiling mass, and as the next storm surge comes pouring in he is nearly swept off his feet. 

He is too far from the pool’s edge now, no handholds left to him; his head swims, his arms flinging out for balance. If he loses his footing now he will be utterly lost. The wave retreats just as he falls, landing on his hands and knees in the now-retreating water. The tincture must be doing its work; though he raises his hand and sees the brilliant shock of blood already seeping from a gash on his palm, he feels very little at all. 

For a moment, a precious moment, he can only remain kneeling in the shallow water as the rain lashes his back, watching as his blood mingles and dilutes with the saltwater on his skin. He can see now that the landing of the pool ends not another step before him, its depths still hidden beneath the waves. He ought to stand. To retreat to the edge of the pool where he will be safe from the voracious currents. Javert raises his head to the altar before him, revealed at the tide’s lowest point. In a moment the water will come rushing back with a fury strong enough to scatter him like sand. 

Shakily, he climbs to his feet. He can already hear the roar as the water surges back, feel the icy tide rising hungrily up his legs. The swell reaches the altar first, seething over it like white fire. The tide barrels towards him. Moments before it strikes, he takes a breath and dives. 

The water hits him like a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs and seizing around him with the violence of an avalanche. He cannot see, cannot breathe. The current has him now, will make an offering of his unworthy form by painting it across the rocks. He is tumbling, helpless, no time even for prayer. Javert’s mouth opens in a wordless cry as the water drags him towards his end.

But there is no pain, no sudden impact. Something more powerful than even the current seizes his legs, his arms, his body—he is yanked away from the rocks, backwards against the driving tide with more strength than should be possible. On instinct he struggles, feels himself encased in rushing water and something  _ more _ , something other, which holds him against the sea’s fury.

And then, at once, all is still.

The pressure of water remains pressed against his limbs, but no longer is he caught in a whirlpool; most strangely he is  _ warm,  _ the cold has lifted away as effortlessly as a blanket drawn away with morning. In the next moment, Javert opens his eyes onto the world of the divine. 

Color, all around him and in every shade, a blur so shocking after the greys and blacks and whites of the storm-ravaged cove. He floats, utterly still, and his eyes begin to clear; the wash of color resolves itself into deep red coral branching up like trees, sea stars as deep purple as the dusk, a forest of yellows and oranges and whites and blues revealed to him in the utterly still water. If he were dead, surely this would be heaven—but surely his lungs would not be crying for air. 

With a desperation nearly makes swimming impossible, Javert claws his way to the surface. Air breaks over his face, sweeter than he has ever known. Before he can drag the first breath into his lungs he is retching mouthful after mouthful of water out of his throat, coughing and shuddering and then at last, taking a breath. It is so heady that for a long moment he thinks of nothing but bringing as much air into his body as possible.

In time, higher functions return. He is clinging to stone, his eyes still bleary from the water; though his head and shoulders emerge into the air, his body remains submerged in water as still and torrid as a summer’s day. This is no hurricane’s eye; blinking rapidly, he squints up to the roof of the cave, which moments ago appeared a portal directly onto god’s wrath. The sky above is flat and blue without a trace of clouds, and the light which filters in is rich and golden evening light, limning the vines which stretch languidly from the roof the cave above. 

The altar which supports him now is covered by a sheen of water six inches deep and as smooth as glass, the shimmer of sunlight dappling the coral below. It is only then that Javert realizes that there are no fish at all. 

At once the pool around him feels too large, to exposed. He turns from the altar to the water, scanning the clear, crystalline depths. No movement but the fleshy pulse of anemone.The edge of the water seems farther even than when this basin was a seething portal to a watery hell. The narrow tunnel from whence he came, little more than a dark crack in the wall of the cove, is impossibly far away.

“Why did you do that?”

Javert freezes. Though the water is warm and still and pleasant, at once his body is cold. The voice is low and masculine, coming from the other side of the altar. Every fiber of Javert’s body urges him to freeze like a prey animal first sighted by a predator, but he is not some cowering beast. Slowly, deliberately, Javert turns to face his god. 

On the other side of the altar, perhaps ten feet away, a man rests with his arms propped on the smooth stone surface, his brows furrowed and his eyes locked on Javert. There is absolutely nothing strange about him at all; his skin is smooth and unscaled, the outlines of his hands beneath the shallow surface appear bereft of talons, and the line of his mouth, though tight with what appears to be unhappy rumination, does not seem likely to contain a multitude of teeth. In fact, there is little godlike about him at all; his face, though handsome, is creased with age, and his hair is quickly drying into curls as white as sun-bleached bone. 

For a moment, Javert forgets the need for speech. “My lord—I thought perhaps it was required of me,” he says at last, bowing his head in deference. 

The man’s frown only deepens. “You would have been killed.”

“If that was your wish, O great one.” 

Now his expression grows positively bewildered. His eyes take in Javert, scratched and battered and clinging to the stone like a sailor to the mast of his sinking ship. “Who  _ are _ you?”

Javert takes a breath. “I am foam—”

“I heard you before,” the god says, not unkindly. “They were pretty words. But they do not explain to me why you would leap headfirst into a whirlpool, seemingly on my account.”

Javert is not certain how to answer that—the answer seems so obvious he is not sure how to explain it. “My lord—”

“Enough of that, please. I would prefer to avoid such titles.” 

“Well then how should I address you?” Javert barely manages to bite an an honorific off the end of his sentence. His question comes off more peevish than he had intended, but the god does not seem to mind. 

“Among my people, I am known as  _ V̵͎̈ȃ̸͔l̸̬̂j̵̦̉è̶͉a̵̲͝n̵̮͘ _ .”

There is something strange in the way the word is spoken, as if some of the sounds use more vocal chords than Javert possesses, and others use no physical voice at all. Javert’s brow furrows as he replays it in his mind before speaking the name of his god, as close as he can approximate it: “Valjean?” 

The god shrugs. “That is likely as close as your kind can come. And your name?” 

The situation is rapidly sliding out from the barest veneer of Javert’s understanding. Nothing is how he thought it would be. “I am Javert. Your attendant.”

“And what am I meant to do with an attendant?” 

“Whatever you wish.” 

At once the man’s face hardens. “I wish for nothing but a safe harbor from the storm. Your temple was the nearest safety I could find.” 

“Very well then,” Javert says, growing testy in spite of himself. “There is safety here enough, and you are welcome to it.” 

Something flickers over the man’s face; anger, most likely. But as he turns away a moment later, his back stretching in preparation to sink beneath the waves, Javert’s breath catches in his throat.

“Wait.” 

He speaks before he is aware of the intent, his words over-loud in the large and silent chamber. He colors almost immediately afterward; he has just given an order to a god, and yet somehow he remains in possession of all his limbs. Even more remarkably, his command has been heeded—Valjean remains poised, his back hunched, revealing the deep gashes in the flesh seeping not red, but blue. 

“You are—injured?” Javert continues, and the god’s shoulders shake with a humorless laugh.

“A dispute with a fellow god—Ṯ̸̑h̸̳͠e̷̺̓ṅ̴̡a̴̩͊r̸̪d̵͓͠i̶͔͘e̴̬̎r̶͔͗. I did not wish to fight him, and he used that to great advantage.” Still he doesn’t turn. “Dashed me against the cliffs. I was a fool to think he would do otherwise, and for that I am paying the price.” 

“Perhaps I might help.” 

At that, Valjean does turn. “What effect could you have that a god’s magic could not?” 

“What use is a temple at all, then?” Javert retorts. “There is much a god’s servants can do, if you will allow them to try.” 

For a moment longer the god hesitates. And then, barely perceptible, he nods. 

It is the only encouragement Javert needs. With aching arms he hauls himself out of the water and onto the shallows of the altar, clumsy on his hands and knees. His head reels dangerously, but the drug appears to be settling warm and thick into his veins. Surreal, to think of that conversation not an hour ago, when he himself suspected that the god awaiting him would not hesitate before ripping into his flesh. 

Slowly, he clambers to his feet. Valjean is watching him now, his body angled away but his face turned back. His eyes linger especially on Javert’s legs, feet, and nakedness. For the first time that he can remember, something shivers in the pit of stomach at the thought of his body so bared, a bitter humiliation with an almost pleasant curl at its edge. 

As he sloshes across the stone plateau to the opposite edge, the familiar prickle returns to his spine. Valjean appears, as he grows closer, no different from a man. The presence of hidden scales or spines do not suddenly grow clearer as he nears. For a moment, Javert is almost relieved. 

And then Javert takes the final step forward, and the truth of the god’s form is revealed. 

It comes comes boiling up from behind the reef, a reddish mass which seethes and churns like the sea in a storm. From the waist up, he is wholly human. Below, he is a multi-limbed creature of the depths, all curling tentacles and flashing suckers, as pale as milk. For a moment Javert feels only incomprehension, tinged with awe. And then the revulsion sinks in, an instinct so gut-deep that he can do nothing to deny it. 

He has been warned of this, heard the other acolytes speak of it as they described their first services: usually with a fondly reminiscent gleam in their eyes, their hands tracing old scars bitten or carved or seared into their flesh. It is a sign of humanity’s baseness that they suffer such pangs when faced with the sight of the Ancient Ones. Javert breathes in, slowly, for all that his chest wishes to contract with panic. He is above such things. He will force himself to feel the reverence and adoration which is the god’s due, and hope his unworthiness might be forgiven. 

Perhaps Valjean notes his hesitation, for he turns his face away once again. This close, Javert can see the deep, brutal gouges in his back far clearer. It reminds him of the acolytes who were flayed with the whip after attempting to steal from the temple. They had not survived, but they had been mortal. For a moment Javert stares at the water between the altar’s edge and Valjean’s back, and the twisting mass of tentacles ever-moving beneath the surface. Only a brief hesitation—and then he lowers himself to the edge of the rock, his legs hooked over its edge, and reaches for Valjean’s back. 

His fingers settle on the skin of his shoulders, for it is difficult to find any other place where the flesh is not laid bare. The skin is surprisingly cool beneath Javert’s touch; even more surprising is the flicker of color which moves through the lower half of Valjean’s body, like an electrical pulse of darkness which reaches the end of each tentacle and then fades. 

“I am not certain what effect this will have,” Javert says, spitting the admission out like bitter medicine. His fellows had spoken of granting their gods strength through quiet effort of will, but most gods preferred to take rather than receive. 

“You are not often in the habit of healing broken stray gods?” There is a wry curl to Valjean’s voice now, though still he does not turn. 

“I am not in the habit of consorting with gods in any way.” In the brief pause which follows, Javert shifts his hands on Valjean’s shoulders self-consciously. “That is to say, you are the first.” 

Valjean says nothing. Inwardly, Javert curses himself. He had assumed a god would want to know that its sacrifice had not been previously enjoyed by another; but perhaps Valjean would have preferred an attendant with more experience. 

“I have never visited a temple, myself,” Valjean says at last. “You need not worry about my expectations.” 

Javert has nothing to say to that; his surprise and faint relief are not relevant to the god’s needs. He settles his hands more firmly against the flesh, human in all ways but for its chill, and closes his eyes.

Difficult to say how long Javert remains bowed over Valjean’s back, the prayer a never-ending loop through his mind. In this, he has experience; he has spent many long hours meditating at the foot of the temple statues. It was always easy to empty his mind of nothing but mute devotion. A soft noise from the back of Valjean’s throat opens Javert’s eyes once more, and he finds himself staring onto wounds which already appear far less grievous than before. 

“Is this comfortable?” Javert says, because the moment seems to require speech. He has no soft words to speak in a lover’s ear, no pleasant chatter with which to amuse his betters. He is as icy as a winter sea and as rigid as the rocky coast. And yet Valjean’s shoulders steadily relax beneath his touch, and the pale hue of the tentacles beneath the water is growing rosier by the minute. 

“Yes,” Valjean says, a tad belated. Javert watches the slow curl and uncurl of his tentacles beneath the surface, now languid and calm. There is a lock of his white hair drying at an angle from his ear, and perhaps it is the fact that his hands are already on bare skin or perhaps it is the drug, but Javert almost reaches up to tuck it back for him. 

“Once I would have been able to heal my own form without difficulty,” Valjean admitted after a moment. “My power is not what it used to be.” 

Javert’s eyes cannot help but travel around the cove, its warm still water and golden sunlight when it should have been the center of a maelstrom. “You must have been powerful indeed, then.” 

“Perhaps.” The pause this time is longer; the tentacles blanch one more. “When my daughter left, my strength quickly waned.” 

“I did not know that gods could breed.” 

Valjean’s shoulders shake beneath his hands, another wry laugh. “New gods must come from somewhere, surely,” he says. “But she was not mine in that sense. Only in every other.” 

Strange, to hear that wistful note in the voice of a god. Javert is a stranger to the mechanics of comfort, let alone comforting a deity. In the end he says only, “I am sorry.” 

Valjean only shrugs, a rise and fall beneath Javert’s hands. “She is happier now. She no longer needs me.” 

“Then surely you have done your work well.” 

Valjean says nothing to that, but it is a considering silence. Javert bows his head once more, for he will leave no task unfinished. 

It is dangerously pleasant, this warm water and companionable quiet. When Javert allows his eyes to close he can almost forget this is not a dream; one of those pleasant dreams that he wakes from with a sense of confusing longing and often an inconvenient hardening of his flesh. With distant mortification, he realizes he is in danger of such a circumstance even now; the warmth and quiet and the drug humming in his veins have made him too comfortable, too relaxed, and he can only be grateful that Valjean remains turned away. 

Something brushes against his foot. He tenses at the contact, schooling himself just quickly enough to avoid jerking away. Out of the corner of his eye, beneath the flat pane of the water’s surface, he can see one of Valjean’s appendages climbing up the side of the altar and extending to curiously probe at his foot. Its movement is otherworldly; it seems to bloom like a flower, soft and boneless one moment and then curving with powerful muscle the next, the flat disks of its suckers rolling up to flash in the sunlight. 

Its narrow tip touches the heel of his foot, slick and almost velvety in its softness, the slide of suckers a strange, bumped texture. It slips around his foot, exploring his toes and then moving up his ankle. The movements seem almost subconscious, as if when his mind is not bent on their control they roam with a mind of their own. Javert’s breath remains frozen in his lungs; he dares not move at all. Valjean’s shoulders remain limp beneath his hands. Its suckers press, release, and press again; when they grip his skin, they are utterly immovable. 

“I am sorry.” All at once, the pressure around his leg releases, almost guiltily in its speed. Javert realizes too late that his fingers have tensed on Valjean’s back. Valjean keeps his head bowed, but the shoulders beneath Javert’s touch have gone rigid. 

“Do not apologize,” Javert says, a tad curtly. “You are meant to do such things.”

Valjean’s head turns slightly, “ _ Meant _ to?”

“Well. It is expected.” 

“You came here expecting… that?” 

Javert stares at the sliver of Valjean’s face he can see, nonplussed. “It is what the gods do. That, or devour us wholly. It is how they—you—get your power.” 

“I suppose regular prayers and worship are out of fashion, now?” 

“They are not nearly as potent. Flesh is the most potent of all.” 

Valjean shakes his head, turning away again. “I had heard such things. I admit I suspected many of the tales were exaggerated.”

Javert forces his fingers to relax, pressing the softness of his palms to the cool muscle beneath. “I do not mind,” he says quietly, and nothing more. 

For a few long moments, he thinks that is the end of it; and then, just as before, he feels the tentative brush of something slick and soft and inquisitive. His eyes fall shut on their own accord now as the tentacle slides around his ankle, less hesitant now than it was before. There is nothing but the sensation: the suck and release of the pale disks marches up Javert’s shin and calf, holding him fast and then releasing to slide farther up, mapping every inch of skin, twitching in the soft hollow behind his knee. 

“Your bodies are not like ours,” Valjean muses, his voice reflecting the curiosity of his appendage. “I admit, I find you very strange.” 

“Surely you have seen humans before.” 

“Some. Never so close. Never—like this.” 

Javert’s breath grows shorter as it passes his knee. Its sole purpose seems to be to touch him all over, leaving no inch unexplored. 

“Do I displease you?” Javert says, his voice strangled, the softness of the sentiment utterly alien. He had meant to say,  _ my species _ . He would have settled even for  _ my body _ . But that is not the truth of his question, and he speaks it unwillingly and cannot take it back. 

Valjean does not laugh. In the brief pause, the tentacle curls almost sweetly against the inside of Javert’s knee. “Not at all,” Valjean says softly, and the appendage continues its journey. 

Javert’s head hangs low, his long hair covering part of his face. He can barely imagine his expression; he does not want to. His skin hums with pleasure and his cock is steadily responding. He had not thought of this. Perhaps that was ridiculous; it was all the other acolytes spoke of, for there were few gods that did not partake in their services. And yet Javert had found the thought unimaginable; his body could receive only the most tiresome and mechanical of pleasure, let alone grant it to another. He was incapable of desire, and thus not desirable. 

Shame and anticipation rise to a fever pitch as the tentacle slips up his thigh. He can hear the ripple as it stirs the shallow water, the faint pop of suckers adhering and then releasing. There is no hesitation as they move up his thigh, his hip, and then between his legs. 

Javert is biting his lips so hard he may be drawing blood. He would not taste it if he did. The delicate tip of the tentacle moves from hip bone to inner thigh, and then to the blood-heavy weight at his groin. It touches without self-consciousness, as it had handled every other part of him; curiously feeling up his length, which hardens further beneath the attentions. The sensation is wholly unlike anything Javert has ever experienced, as is the pleasure it brings. 

Then it loops a slick, lazy curl around him to give an experimental squeeze, and Javert grunts and jerks so hard he nearly displaces himself from the ledge. 

A moment later, his eyes fly open. Valjean’s back is as smooth and unblemished as if it had never been wounded at all, and Javert’s hands are white-knuckled on his shoulders. The tentacle had retreated from him the moment his body went tense, leaving him bereft and painfully hard. Its color is deep red now, as rich as a human’s drying blood. Valjean’s head is craned around, his expression worried. 

“Did I hurt you?” 

Javert licks his lips. They taste of salt. “No.” 

It is a moment before comprehension dawns in Valjean’s eyes. He blinks, twice, only one side of his face visible from this angle. “I see,” he says at last. 

Slowly, Valjean turns. His eyes move from Javert’s feet up his long and gangly legs, sliding over his thighs and up to the fork of his legs where his body’s interest remains unmistakeable. 

“This…” Valjean’s eyes return to his cock, almost hesitantly. “This feels… pleasant?” 

The air in Javert’s throat has tangled into a knot that will not budge, no matter how he swallows. He can only nod, heat coloring his face. The thick, muscular strands wrapped around his legs up to mid-thigh contract with a power that steals away what breath Javert has left. Valjean’s eyes are wide as a human’s might be, watching every reaction. 

And then the appendage returns, no longer wrapping around him with exploratory caution.The grip is gentle, yet decided; it slides over him almost curiously, its sensitive tip moving along the underside of his cock, looping around its head, trailing over the slit in such a way that Javert’s breath hisses through his teeth. Valjean watches the production, his expression almost bewildered—at Javert’s sharp noise, he looks up. 

“You will tell me if it is unpleasant,” Valjean says. It’s a question at first, until he sees the look in Javert’s eyes. “You  _ will _ , Javert. I demand it.” 

Somehow, despite the continued slide and probe of the appendage around his length, Javert manages to recall the use of words. “Very well,” he says. He barely recognizes his own voice. “I will—ah!” 

The tentacle coils around him as firmly as the clenched fist Javert has used to grant himself relief in his bunk. But this is different; not hurried and impatient but rather tight and slick and  _ sweet _ , so good that Javert’s body bows forward without him meaning to. Both his legs are almost wholly engulfed now, wrapped in the slick, muscular strands which flex with every movement, the suckers gripping his skin like a thousand questing fingers. And yet still when Valjean’s very human fingers hesitantly slide over his chest, Javert feels them like a brand. 

Already the sensations are nearly too much. He cannot keep track of all that Valjean is doing, eight appendages and two hands all moving over his body, the pleasure eddying up from the pit of his stomach to dissolve all other thought. A tentacle curls all the way around his thigh and then slides up over his hip; the press of its sucker over the bone is like a bruising, sucking kiss. Valjean’s hands have reached his neck, stroking the line of his pulse and traveling up his jaw. 

“May I,” Javert begins, and then loses the rest of his sentence in a heavy exhale as Valjean’s tentacles slide enticingly over his cock. “May I touch you?” 

Valjean’s eyes rise to his face, surprised and wary. “Yes,” he says, his voice rough, and without hesitation Javert complies. 

With a steadying breath, he reaches down to touch one of the tentacles curled around his leg. The flesh of the appendage beneath his fingers is almost shockingly slimy, as soft and pliant as risen dough; and yet he can feel the twitch and pulse of a tremendous strength beneath its surface, and when it tenses to grip him harder it grows as hard as a flexing muscle. He has to distract himself from the pleasure somehow, if he is to last longer than a boy. In truth, were it not for the strangeness of the encounter and the distracting yet enticing pop of suckers against his skin, he would certainly have spilled long ago. 

Valjean sighs, his head falling forward bonelessly until it rests in the center of Javert’s chest. “I can feel it,” he says. The rumble of his voice seems to move into Javert’s heart. “The strength of your worship.” 

Javert groans in earnest, his hand rising to bury in the softness of Valjean’s curls. He cannot stop the rocking of his hips into the tight, slippery pressure Valjean provides; he does not want to. His other hand strokes the muscular slickness of the thick tentacle on his leg. It has crept so much farther up his body that the place where it meets his hand is thicker than the broadest point of his arm, strong enough to crush bone. 

In a moment it turns, the suckers shifting from his leg to his hand, and he is seized by a force so strong he cannot pull his hand away no matter how hard he tugs. The grip is like iron. He strains against it just to feel how thoroughly he is caught, how at the tender mercy of his god he remains. Valjean is still watching him, tracing his expression, ensuring Javert’s attempts to pull away are not in earnest. Whatever he sees is close enough to the truth. 

Another tentacle rises from the water—how many more can remain?—and Javert’s hand is transferred to this, which winds around him from fingers to wrist and holds his arm immobile. It is Valjean’s hand which takes his other wrist, and at once Javert almost recoils from the strangeness of flesh and bone and nails. With no lesser strength Valjean presses his other hand to the stone, and holds him wholly still as his cock is steadily wrung. 

“Valjean. I. Oh.” Javert tugs against the grip of Valjean’s strength, wild and desperate and with no wish to be released. He can barely move. “I cannot last much longer,” he manages to say. His back arches as if he has touched a live wire. He can no longer seem to control the rapturous shift of his own muscles, his body wholly transformed. 

And then, something changes. The world tilts; his arms are pressed backwards so hard the joint of his shoulder groans, and he is lowered backwards, his back sinking into shallow water until it settles against the stone beneath. Valjean seethes up onto the altar, a mass of slick tentacles all surging onto Javert’s body at once, and he is gripped in a million places, held by a million hands, the heavy weight of Valjean on top of him and his hands pinned to the rock, his head falling backwards and then beneath the surface of the water only to be held up by the tentacles which climb up his neck. His legs are spread so brutally that he nearly cries out, the sensation just riding the cusp of pain—he cannot move, he is pinned down and helpless and drowning in sensation as Valjean’s mouth closes over his own. 

He almost does not recognize it as a kiss, as clumsy as it is. Their teeth clack, the hardness of it almost painfully jarring; but Valjean’s lips are soft, and hungry, and Javert submits to it ravenously. He cannot seem to focus; too much is happening. Valjean’s mouth, the constant twine and grip around his legs and arms, the now languid movements against his cock. Their tips are curling further now, moving from his legs and down from his cock, sliding over his balls and then into the cleft of his ass. Valjean’s mouth swallows his whimpers. 

The tentacle holding his head above water prevents him from chasing Valjean’s lips as he pulls back; it slides slides across Javert’s cheek to probe at the edge of his mouth. There is something different about this one; its end is smooth where the others are suckered, and its tip is more broad than delicate. 

Valjean watches, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed not pink, but pale blue. “Will you—” he begins to ask, and Javert opens without hesitation. 

The taste of the sea floods his tongue. It is not so unlike kissing, at first; the tentacle is as soft and supple as Valjean’s tongue had been, and Javert teases it, sucks it, allows it to fill his mouth and watches the effect this has on Valjean’s expression. Every tentacle on Javert’s body tenses as if in tremulous anticipation. And then it is pushing deeper, further into his mouth, growing thicker as it goes. Javert struggles to take it, to ride the pulsing twitches which move up and down its length. It pushes in, and then withdraws—and then pushes back once more, just enough so that Javert can control himself. The tentacles holding him relax for a moment, and then—

Javert’s cry chokes against the pressure in his mouth as the first of the appendages between his legs slips inside of him. It is a thin, shallow presence, curling against the tight muscle and then sliding deeper within. Valjean’s fingers are in his hair, his mouth hangs open with ragged breaths, and he stares into Javert’s wide eyes as the tentacle within him presses farther. 

It does not hurt; it is far too slick and thin for that. Rather the sensation is so strange that Javert cannot help but try to recoil from the alien intrusion. His efforts are in vain. The thick mass of tentacles curled around his thighs and hips allows him no quarter whatsoever. He is held perfectly still, the weight on his tongue gone motionless, as the presence between his legs moves deeper. 

Valjean’s gaze pours into his like water pinning Javert beneath it. Another tentacle joins the first, slipping into him alongside it. He grunts, jerks, is held fast. His body stretches around the intrusion easily, and he can feel the slide and pulse of those long strands within him, the mounting pressure as another joins them, and it ought to be a humiliation but he needs  _ more _ , ever more. The grip around his cock has gone still and tight. He feels hot and sore and full of a pressure that cries out for relief, and finds none. 

Valjean could keep him like this for hours. The thought floats into his mind like a feather drifting to earth on a windless day, light and remote. Likely, in point of fact, the god could keep him like this for  _ days _ . An eternity of this sensation, of being utterly powerless, of Valjean inside of him as deep as he could go. The thought should terrify him. 

The appendage on his tongue throbs, and resumes its push and pull. It seems bent on getting as much of itself into his mouth as he can bear, and it is never enough for either of them. It pushes so far back that he nearly gags, swallowing hard around it; it always withdraws when he can take no more, leaving him raw and wanting. 

Valjean moans softly, his eyes shuddering closed as Javert’s throat works around the length within it. His body heaves, the pressure and grip tightening and releasing, pressing into him from both directions until his head swims from the sensation and the inability to get enough air.

And then, all at once, the pressure on his tongue is gone. 

He gasps instinctively, breath searing against his throat and lungs. Valjean’s lips are on his almost immediately, sucking at the stolen air. Javert loses his breath again willingly, almost and yet not quite unaware of what the tentacle he has just had in his mouth is doing. He can feel it trailing wetly over the few inches of bare skin on his body, down his chest, over his groin. Javert grunts as the other tentacles slide out of him, leaving only a hollow ache in their place. And then—

“Gods. Oh, gods.” Javert’s body jerks as the tentacle slides into him, thick and smooth and yet so slippery that it enters him with embarrassing ease. No tentative probing now. It pushes into him fast, hard, and at once he can feel it twisting and pulsing in his deepest places, growing thicker as more of its mass pours into him, and all he can do is twitch and groan and struggle against a force he does not wish to escape as it begins to fuck him mercilessly. 

“Javert,” Valjean murmurs, his mouth open against Javert’s cheek. He draws in a shuddering breath, and Javert cries out as the tentacle throbbing inside of him moves faster. 

Javert wants it. He wants to be marked, claimed, taken in every way. He can barely form words in his thoughts, and yet somehow his mouth his moving, his tongue spilling that which he had not meant to ask in a strained voice he does not recognize: “Am I yours?” 

The surge which moves through Valjean’s body is as powerful as the sea. “Yes,” he whispers, reverent against Javert’s lips, just as the tips of his other tentacles slide within him alongside the other, so much, too much, he cannot bear it and yet he does, the massive presence within him seething and pumping and driving him over the edge. 

Javert screams, his body bending like a drawn bow, and the pleasure breaks like a wave on the shore, he is falling apart, his vision whiting out, a hundred droplets of sea-spray dissolving onto the rocks, and the last sight he sees is of Valjean haloed against the golden sunlight above, his tentacles writhing as he throws his head back in ecstasy. 

* * *

Javert drifts back to his body as slowly as the steady return of the tides. His muscles ache with pleasure, pillowed by a velvety softness which cradles him so gently he feels as if he is floating. He  _ is _ floating, he realizes. Water laps at his collarbones and neck, warm and comforting, and within it his limbs are utterly weightless. His cheek and chest rest against something sturdy, and someone is stroking his hair. 

Javert opens his eyes. The light which floods the cove is no longer the burnished gold of an eternal sunset; it is the clean grey light of a winter’s dawn, in a sky washed clean by the storm. The surface of the water remains still, however, though the coral beneath look pale. Perhaps it is only in comparison to the royal red of Valjean’s tentacles eddying beneath the surface. At his stirring, the hand in his hair stills; the presence tangled around his legs and body gives a single, comforting squeeze. 

“You slept long,” Valjean says softly, his mouth just beside Javert’s ear. His hand slides down to the nape of Javert’s neck; a tentacle trails up the knobs of his spine. Gone is the revulsion; Javert cannot recall ever feeling so relaxed in his life. 

He swallows. His mouth feels dry, his throat sore. “I did not expect you to remain,” he says, and does not realize it is the truth until he speaks it aloud. 

At once he feels Valjean tense, the soft, liquid grip of tentacles on his limbs twitching. “If you wish for me to leave,” he begins, and Javert shifts his head to press an awkward kiss to Valjean’s mouth before he can finish such a blasphemous sentence. When Valjean pulls back it is to stare at him in something like astonishment, his eyes lively and grey as the sea.

“It is traditional,” Javert says in the face of that expression, “for an attendant to be allowed a small petition after a god has been fully satisfied.” 

Valjean’s eyes crease with a smile more genuine than Javert has yet seen on his face. He could stand to see many more. “Anything,” he says, and a god’s word is law. Such an extravagant promise matters little, however. Javert already knows what he needs.

“When you do leave this place,” Javert says, daring to rest his palm against Valjean’s smiling cheek. “I would ask that you return as soon as is completely feasible.” 

“You assume I ever intend to leave,” Valjean observes, and in the face of his god’s brilliant smile Javert cannot help but lean back in to offer his devotion. 


	4. Epilogue

_ 10 years later. _

It has been many moons since Rivette stepped through the stone gate of the temple, with its air sweetened by salt and incense and its high bronze idols glimmering in the light of the sacred flames. 

When last he left he was a younger man, eager to follow his god’s migration to the sister-temple on the sandy shores and turquoise waters far to the south. Now he returns with a contemplative set to his eyes and his severed arm bound to his chest. When his god had taken it he had felt no pain; only an ecstasy of devotion. There are many new servants of the temple he does not recognize, and they look upon the offering he made of his flesh with envy. Once he would have felt pride. Now he merely bows his head politely, and passes.

It is some time before he has completed all the proper visitations, conducted the necessary prayers at altars gone long without his attentions. Chabouillet has grown older still, his aging not delayed in the way of an acolyte active in the service of a god. There are many more of Rivette’s old colleagues who look exactly as they did when he left, barring perhaps for a new scar or a missing limb. 

When at last Rivette is freed from his obligations, he does not immediately seek his bed. Instead he wanders the familiar tunnels and chambers, carved deep into the cliffside. In places they wind narrow as a coiled serpent; others open onto the vault of the stars. The call of the temple’s holiest places where the gods receive their worship is a low call in his bones, as deep as the hum of the waves. He will not follow it tonight. 

Instead, he makes his way up a long winding stair cut into the stone, until the air on his face is cool and fresh with brine. He climbs a wooden ladder, awkward with only one hand, into the open air. The sound of the sea is louder here, a quiet hiss against the rocks far below the cliffs. There is little vegetation on the stony clifftop but for a few clinging shrubs, bent by the wind. Only a faint breeze stirs tonight as Rivette follows the familiar path, his eyes on his feet as he walks, for a slipped step could be fatal so close to the edge. And so it is not until he has nearly run into the figure sitting on the bench he is seeking that he realizes he is not alone.

“Oh—I apologize, I did not see you there,” Rivette says, taking a hasty step back. The tall dark figure hunched on the bench, carved from a massive driftwood tree hauled up the precarious pathway from the ocean over a century ago, turns to silently regard him. 

“I will leave you in peace,” Rivette finishes lamely, already turning to seek out some other quiet place of meditation. 

“Don’t be a fool. There is plenty of room for both.” 

The voice is brusque, impatient, and familiar. That fearful profile turns, silhouetted against the moonlit world beyond; for a moment there is only a glint of narrowed eyes, the bunching of a heavy brow. And then, in the darkness, the glint of a long-missed smile. 

Rivette joins the dark figure on the bench, a small smile touching his own lips. For some time they remain in a silence which Rivette is content not to break. “You are well?” Javert asks at last, sounding dubious of any other possibility.

“I am, praise my god,” Rivette says. 

“How long has it been?” 

“Five years since I was called away.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. It cannot have been so long.” 

From studying Javert’s face Rivette might have thought the same. The man has barely aged in the interim. In the cold light of the rising moon, the echo of a different man is written into the lines of Javert’s face—a man who was as cold and hard as the stony shore, as incapable of mercy as the sea. And then Javert turns to look at him, and though his eyes remain steel, it is blunted like a sword long left to rust. The lines around his mouth carve deeper now than they did all those years ago, and yet their angle has shifted; the muscles have grown more accustomed to smiles. 

“And what of yourself?” Rivette says. “I trust your devotions have continued to prove fruitful.”

Javert huffs under his breath, though neither the darkness nor the high collar of his coat can mask the smile which tugs at one side of his mouth. “I have continued in my service, yes. I expect I will be called back soon.”

Rivette can still recall how Javert was received on leaving his sanctuary triumphant, that first morning after the storm. The rest of the acolytes had already assumed him dead—when he had strode into the temple proper with his unbound hair barely hiding the curious string of perfectly round bruises moving up his neck, the shift in the air had been palpable. Javert had never been liked—he seemed incapable of fostering such an emotion in others—but after he emerged successfully from a trial that would have destroyed many others, he had become an object of respect. 

Rivette turns back to the vista before them, the wide darkness of the sea and sky: one shimmering in the light of a rising crescent, the other glittering like gems. They seem to run into each other, so that the temple cliffs hang in a light-filled void. “It is beautiful,” Rivette says, with a reverence that the long years of worship have not and will never wear away. 

“The sea? Yes, it is very fine.” Javert sounds distracted; his eyes remain fixed on the horizon, his expression for all the world like that of a tender maiden awaiting sight of her intended’s ship. “One day it will claim us all.” 

He speaks this last almost fondly, a note of wistfulness softening his harsh voice. It must be a great power indeed, Rivette thinks, to plant such tenderness in such stony ground. 

He leaves Javert then, alone on the high bluff above a sea of stars, quiet and content in communion with his god. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [art for 'thy sea, O God, so great'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297698) by [Nuizlaziai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuizlaziai/pseuds/Nuizlaziai)
  * [Takoyaki (fanart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835150) by [Readaholics_Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readaholics_Anonymous/pseuds/Readaholics_Anonymous)


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